![\"Sketch](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/STT-L-DATADOC-0410-1.jpg\")
Sketch plans for the proposed \u201cProject Gravity\u201d data center campus in Archbald, obtained via Right-to-Know Law request. The plans show two data centers close to the Lackawanna County Housing Authority townhouses in Jermyn.<\/p>\nSCRANTON \u2014 The Lackawanna County Housing Authority plans to engage outside legal counsel to potentially enter the fight over data center projects proposed near its public-housing complex along Gibson Street in Jermyn, attorney and authority Chairman Paul Walker confirmed.<\/p>\n
Walker \u2014 who is not the Paul James Walker that recently served as county solicitor \u2014 said authority officials \u201cdirected our solicitor (Rocco Valvano Jr.) to talk to people about filing some type of intervention\u201d regarding controversial data center developments proposed in neighboring Archbald.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not an expert on that, nor am I, but we\u2019re going to be talking to attorneys about doing something,\u201d Walker said.<\/p>\n
What specifically that might be remains to be seen, but Walker confirmed the authority is exploring its legal options as a landowner to protect its tenants and property in Jermyn. It\u2019s located near the proposed Project Gravity, which entails constructing nearly 1 million square feet of data centers in the wooded area between Business Route 6 and Eynon Jermyn Road.<\/p>\n
Sketch plans for the proposed \u201cProject Gravity\u201d data center campus in Archbald, obtained via Right-to-Know Law request. The plans show two data centers close to the Lackawanna County Housing Authority townhouses in Jermyn.<\/p>\n
On the northwest corner of the prospective data center campus, two of the project\u2019s seven data center buildings would be located just south of the housing authority\u2019s townhouses along Gibson Street. Another proposed data center development called Project North would construct a smaller, four-building campus bordering Jermyn in close proximity to the housing authority site.<\/p>\n
Project Green Mountain, meanwhile, proposes constructing seven data center buildings, each with a 138,000-square-foot footprint, at the Stavola Quarry site located east of the Casey Highway and less than a mile south of the county\u2019s Aylesworth Park.<\/p>\n
While county officials publicly discussed earlier this month the county\u2019s potential standing to enter the data center fight given the closeness of the park and housing authority property to proposed data center sites, Commissioner Bill Gaughan and county Solicitor Chris Caputo said Wednesday that the county itself isn\u2019t actually the landowner in those cases. The authority owns the housing development and the federal government owns Aylesworth Park, though the county leases the land and maintains the park, they said.<\/p>\n
But Caputo said the housing authority is \u201cgoing to move forward and seek out counsel to represent them to intervene in the current lawsuits, or, if possible, bring lawsuits on their own to protect that asset of theirs and protect their residents.\u201d<\/p>\n